Initial Analysis of the Israeli Supreme Court's Decision in the Settlements Regularization Law Case
Initial Analysis of the Israeli Supreme Court's Decision in the Settlements Regularization Law Case HCJ 1308/17, Silwad Municipality, et al. v. The Knesset, et. al Issued 15 June 2020 On 9 June 2020, the Israeli Supreme Court decided in an 8 to 1 judgment to cancel the "Settlements Regularization Law for Judea and Samaria [the West Bank]".1 In a ruling spanning 107 pages, the court found that the law violates the rights of Palestinians to property, equality and dignity disproportionately.2 The Knesset passed the controversial law in February 2017. The law provides that the State of Israel could expropriate privately-owned Palestinian land in the occupied West Bank, and to retroactively “regularize” or “legalize” the Israeli settlements built on it. An Addendum to the Law identified 16 settlements to which the law would apply (see Annex at the end of this paper, which also includes a list of the Palestinian villages on which these settlements encroach). According to the court's decision, as of 2016, the scope of Israeli construction on privately-owned Palestinian land in the West Bank amounted to 3,455 structures, of which 1,285 are residential buildings or public institutions.3 The Court’s decision is based on several main legal principles: 1. International law and the non-sovereignty principle applies to the West Bank: The decision stresses that since June 1967, the laws that apply in the West Bank are the laws of "belligerent occupation," supplemented by international human rights law. Further, “the practical implication is that the law of the State of Israel does not apply in the region.”4 1 HCJ 1308/17, Silwad Municipality, et al.
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